


take a deep breath

by GalacticGoat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: ...Technically., Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Bombs, Drugs, M/M, POV Second Person, Post-Apocalypse, Swearing, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-08-21 19:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8256901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalacticGoat/pseuds/GalacticGoat
Summary: The war has run its course, the bodies have decayed, the dust has been kicked up and settled--now all the world can do now is busy itself with picking up the pieces left behind. Progress has been made, with cities and systems slowly coming back to life. But it’s already taken over four decades. And that's four decades too many.Dave Strider has always lived among the dirt and ruins, and he’s not going to waste his time or breath dreaming that things could be different. He’s holding his own, treading wherever the currents may take him. Everything’s fine. He’s fine.Karkat Vantas, protester-turned-reluctant-revolutionary and assface extraordinaire, seems absolutely hellbent on proving him wrong.





	1. Prologue

  

Two score and seven years ago, somebody dropped a bomb.

It wasn’t your average kind of bomb, either--none of that ‘I guess our building is toast,’ crap. You’re talking ‘aw shit, I guess our entire city is royally screwed’ in regards to that bomb. It was big and cylindrical and gray; it had all the features a sensible bomb had to have. And probably a few extra. Goddamn, it must’ve been one hell of a bomb.

It came down at a time of day that no one ever seems to remember. Prebombers are constantly fighting over it, like if they guess right down to the correct minute they’ll win a prize. “It was ten thirty-five in the morning--” “-- _No_ , Darlene, it was eight o’clock at night!” “Shut the fuck up Edith, we all know it was three forty-seven in the afternoon.” And then they bark and caterwaul at each other all throughout the night in their apartment complexes, and the only thing they manage to successfully do is take away your time to catch some Z’s. Absolutely incredible.

But anyways, back to the bomb. That fan-freaking-tastic specimen that no one seems to agree fell at an exact time, but _definitely_ fell on a certain little city called Houston. Your good old birthplace, twenty-eight years in the future.

When it touched down, Houston was dead silent. Emphasis on the word “dead.” No time to scream, really. People got seared to a crisp faster than they could blink. Two million people up and gone in a puff of carbon. Bro says you were lucky you weren’t there. You have half a mind sometimes to point out that _he_ probably wasn’t there either, but what do you know, really? Bro could be old as prehistoric dino shit and he’d never let you be the wiser.

Like you said earlier though, two million people died in Houston. That’s not a number to sneeze at, no matter how hard your nose is itching. That’s a serious fuckin’ number. There is no object that could be considered _underwhelming_ if there’s two million of it in quantity. But of course, it still looks like a paper cut in comparison to the two hundred and fifty million others that were similarly fried that day, all throughout the U.S. Because that was a thing that happened.

...Shit. You probably should’ve started off by saying that two score and seven years ago, somebody dropped _bombs_ \--plural. But it’s a little late for that. And it’s not nearly as catchy.

So here you are, surrounded by two hundred and fifty-two million corpses and the shells of their cities, the one you’re mainly concerned with being named Houston. Everything’s dead. Half the people that are dead don’t even know why they’re dead, who made them dead. Buildings don’t fucking talk, so they don’t have any questions to ask. They just groan and creak when the first breeze whistles its way through the exposed wood and metalwork, carrying off the dust and death. And the people hiding _inside_ the wood and metalwork, they’re the ones that climb out and ask questions. They’re furious, hysterical, drowning in feelings they don’t even have the goddamn brainpower to properly comprehend. Most of the questions they ask never get a proper answer.

They end up taking their frustration out by building a city right on top of the old one. Other places follow their lead.

Houston, the newer version you’ve grown up in almost your whole life, ended up being a patchwork mess. Charred bricks and not-charred bricks, rusty metal and not-so-rusty metal. If risk analysts were still around, they’d probably bust a blood vessel looking at the damn city. Dirk gets twitchy every time he looks at your apartment building.

Life dragged itself out of the ruins and built itself a new set of legs to stand on, but it walks differently, now. That many people can’t just die without leaving some reminders. The lifestyles from Before, those are straight-up surreal and inefficient compared to nowadays, if you’re being honest.

Apparently people used to take their time to chew, chug, check their faces in the mirror--so on, and so forth. No nutrition pills, no ever-present IVs, no breath-holding required. It sounds wild in theory. The world must have been a chaotic and pretty fuckin’ exciting place when the air was actually breathable.

But enough about the world, enough about Before, and enough about Houston. You haven’t gotten a chance to properly talk about yourself. Not that there’s much to say. Or really, there’s not that much you want to say. But it’s easiest to just roll your eyes, and recap the basics.

You were born and have a birthday, just like everybody else. You had a young mom and a dad that seemed to feel pretty okay about you, just like everybody else. You lived in the Underground with your parents up until the age of five, just like everybody else. On your birthday you were issued your first gas mask and sent back up to the surface with your family, just like everybody else. A month after you moved to the Above, something you can’t remember fell through and you were forced to shack with your dad, and _only_ your dad; soon afterwards he demanded that you start calling him Bro--and when this happened, it was not just like everybody else. Then you became a part-time swordsman and Dirk showed up one day on your doorstep looking like he was being held in that spot via gunpoint and somehow, against all the odds, your DJing career lifted off, just a tiny bit. And none of that really seemed to line up with other people’s experiences. But about a year ago, on your eighteenth birthday, when you opened the box and found your new, ass-spankingly-new mask--jacked up with LEDs and personal effects thanks to Dirk--it was kind of like everybody else. Just a little.

Now things in your life are considerably normal. You walk down the street and see men, women, and kids roaming side-by-side with faces of plastic and polycarbonate. The Prebombers loiter by storefronts to mutter about the good old days. The sky cycles from orange to navy to orange and the rare sight of clouds makes you nervous. The radio station plays the same three songs everyday; not one of them has a human voice in its tune. You head to work and DJ at the local nightclub from ten at night to one in the morning every weekend. Protesters line the roadside on your way there and protest about who-knows-what, their voices muffled through their masks, their fists waving towards the sky.

“We’re unhappy!” they shout. “You should be unhappy, too!”

And you don’t necessarily _disagree_ with them, but you don’t bother to nod your head either. They clearly haven’t had a chance to stop and smell the toxic fumes; otherwise, they’d just be focusing on living day-to-day like the rest of society.

 

Your name is Dave Strider, and you know that no matter how hard people may try, things aren’t going to get any better.

  
You’re okay with that.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...........so. this is a thing. i've been thinking about it for a few weeks, but it took multiple attempts to get this beginning down and ready to be posted. i've been in a lull with writing (first year of college has been kinda hectic tbh), so i'm hoping it's ok!
> 
> i usually don't do prologues or try to lay out the scene so this was a bit of surreal experience, but it was a fun one!
> 
> if you wanna check in to see progress on chapters and writing and stuff, you can find me at  
> galactic-goat.tumblr.com!
> 
> sorry for any typos, errors, weird spots, etc. this whole blurb took less than a day, and it's not been beta'd (i'm not really looking for one though, considering my scheduling's a nightmare rip). 
> 
> but anyways, thanks so much for reading! :^D


	2. Chapter 1

 

It’s ten in the morning and you’re sitting in the police station with your hands folded in your lap, doing your best not to sit, speak, or hell, _breathe_ too aggressively. Your nerves are currently frayed six ways to motherfuckin’ Sunday. You’re sweating something awful. The cop is staring you down, tapping out an impatient rhythm against his battered-to-shit desk. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap, tap.

“What d’ya have to say, boy?” he asks.

The key to the handcuffs is sitting right between you and him. You really want to take a good, long look at it. You want to stare for a few seconds, live out that one porn fantasy in your head where you snatch the key and snap off the cuffs and drive off in a souped-up monster truck into the sunset flipping the bird and former President Barack Obama is applauding in the backseat with tears in his eyes and-- _Oops_ , it ain’t porn if there ain’t no fellatio.

You blink yourself back to the present, nice and slow. “He didn’t mean to cause any problems.”

A beat of silence. You can see one of the cop’s eyebrows rise behind the plexiglass of his mask. He scoots himself a little closer, elbows propped on the desk so that he can rest his chin on his linked fingers.

“The man aired a mock execution on our city-wide broadcasting channel,” he argues.

You forcibly brush off the anchors weighing your shoulders down, offer a shrug. “They were just puppets.”

“There was _blood_ in those puppets. _Children_ watch that channel, son.”

You ease yourself backwards, against the back of your chair, and cross your legs. The air you breathe out through your nose trickles from the vent of your mask like lazy tendrils of smoke, seeping up against the ceiling before dispersing.

“I’m sure he has a good reason for doing all this,” you say, knowing full well that he definitely does not have one. “Wanna share your thoughts with the rest of the class, Bro?” you continue anyways, twisting to face him.

Bro, handcuffed and awkwardly perched in his stiff wooden chair right next to you, apparently isn’t feeling quite so generous. He says nothing, and the detainee-mandated mask does nothing to hide the flat, unimpressed stare directed first at you, then the cop.

...Shit. So much for getting a helping hand.

You bite the metaphorical bullet, and it tastes like twelve variations of sweaty ballsack on the way down.

“Sir,” you start, voice as smooth as your throat will allow, “if we’re being honest here, mano a mano, this isn’t the kind of bail my family can just shoulder through.”

The cop snorts. “You should’ve brought that up with your dad before--”

“--He ain’t my dad,” you interrupt automatically. Click your mouth shut when the cop gives an offended glare. “...Sir,” you tack on sheepishly. “But we’re already up to our eyeballs in bills for nutrition pills and IVs, and the bail price is just gonna kill us.”

Bro’s stare is like goddamn acid chewing its way through the skin on your neck; you know you and his sword’s blade are going to get hella intimate tonight if you manage to get him outta here. He would probably painstakingly disembowel himself with a dirt-covered spork before begging to a stranger--let alone a _cop_ …But he’s not you, and you’re not him. Thank fuckin’ God.

There’s another pause in the conversation, one where you feel the guy’s eyes sizing you up, considering your words. He trudges over your size, clothes, cleanliness… and mask. He fixates on that last thing, and you know the fine red polish and tinted eyeglass and pupil-tracking clockwork white-light LEDs and carbon-staining exhalation features aren’t helping your case. You wonder if he sees you for what you really are, a poor chump with a rich kid’s toy. Most people don’t.

“Leave him with us if you can’t hand over the money,” the cop finally says. Something about his posture looks softer, and maybe, just _maybe_ , he’s on your wavelength. “It doesn’t have to be your problem if you don’t _make it_ your problem,” he elaborates.

You’re already shaking your head at the suggestion. “No, no, we need him.”

Dirk’s already over his head with getting the cash for IVs, and the most you’ve been able do with your DJing earnings is buy nutrition pills and teeth-cleaners. No Bro means no money for rent, running water, or electricity, and frankly, that’d be a big hefty wrench in your plans to y’know, _keep living_.

The cop takes this in with an irritated sigh, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“What do you want me to do, then?” he growls.

“Lower the bail,” you reply almost immediately. “It doesn’t have to be a lot, just a couple thousand.”

He scoffs. “Hijacking the city-wide channel should’ve costed him three times as much for a penalty fee, _plus_ a few years in jail. But with all this protesting madness going on, we don’t want to waste time on cases like these. I’ve already done you a major favor, kid.”

You’re doing a triple backflip off the fucking handle in your head, three seconds from faceplanting into a heaping pile of ‘ _God, what did I do that managed to piss you off so badly?_ ’ You don’t let it show. Instead, you pick up the cop’s rhythm, tapping out the same tune on the desk.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap, tap. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck-i-ty, fuck.

“What’s wrong with just one more solid?” you ask. It comes out as more of a mumble.

“...What?”

“If you’ve already pulled so many strings, what’s one more?”

The cop rubs the back of his neck. “Kid…”

“I swear to Jesus, if you do this for me, we’ll keep Bro out of your hair for the rest of your police-doing days.” And Bro is making that neutral face in your direction that says, ‘ _Sure, you can fucking_ try _, jackass_ ,’ which means that your promise is already as good as broken, but it’s the sentiment that counts.

You lean forward, do your best to drill into the cop’s soul with your LED eyes and he’s staring;  he’s staring so goddamn hard you think it might just be working. “Please, sir. Fuckin’ _please_.”

The cop’s slow to respond. The cogs in his head are click-clicking so loud and his voice is so absent that you bite down on his body language like one of the rabid dogs from the Beaumont Trash Pile having a field day with some stranger’s old nasty long johns.

He scratches his temple. Awkwardly clears his throat. Lets out a thoughtful “hmmm.”

“...So?” you ask.

The cop straightens his back. Clasps his hands together.

And then you hear the air whistle through his mask as he inhales to open his mouth and you lean even closer over the desk to hear the verdict and the cop says--

 

* * *

 

“I’m gonna chop his dick off,” you mutter into the phone. It’s tucked into your shoulder, letting you use both hands to sign off paperwork. Your wallet is already two hundred dollars lighter, and that reality is taking a little razzle out of your dazzle.

Actually, scratch that. It’s taking _most_ of the razzle out of your goddamn dazzle. You think you’re starting to get the headache of the millenia.

John offers a worried laugh from over the line, and the audio is tinny, like little claws scratching against a nailboard.

“That’d like, _really_ hurt dude. And I think that might actually kill him? Why not--”

“My sword. His dick. _Swoosh_.” You finish the last signature with an angry flourish. The woman across the counter uses a singular finger to drag the form back to her side, and you can tell she’s worried. Extremely worried. You have half a mind to whisper “don’t call the cops” in her direction before you remember exactly where you are. So you take it as a lost cause, and make your merry way down the hall instead.

“The second I forked over the first payment and he got his uncuffed hands on his gas mask, he flash-stepped the hell outta here,” you say, looking for the nearest bathroom. “It was like he was a 2000’s PTA mom who realized she’d left her brownies in the oven for too long. Shit went flying _everywhere_ on her way out, and in the chaos she ditched little Kevin at soccer practice.” You find the right door, lazily toeing it open with your dirty shoe before striding in. “...I’m little Kevin, by the way.”

John snorts over the line, but his voice is pretty sympathetic. “Well, the whole situation sounds like it sucks some serious butt, Kevin.”

And despite how rotted-out your insides feel, and despite the fact that your head is throbbing, you can’t help but smile. Just a tiny bit.

“I can’t seem to get the ass-taste outta my mouth,” you agree.

The bathroom’s surprisingly clean, with cracked knock-off marble counters for the sinks. You prop your backpack on the spot that looks the driest. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to cough up two hundred a week--I only have my gig on weekends, and most of it’s for nutrition pills and teeth-cleaners.” You shove a hand into the pack, shuffle around in its contents until you find the right bag. You tug it out, toss it onto the counter. “The cop didn’t cut down the bail price any further, so Dirk and I have to fork up the cash for almost a _year_.”

“Why not make Bro pay for it all himself?”

Now it’s your turn to laugh. “Bro? Complying to _anything_ the government demands? It’ll be a fuckin’ frigid day in hell before that happens.” You crack open the plastic baggie, wiggle out one of the needleless syringes. “He’s pulled this kind of break-the-law-and-get-arrested crap before--every few years, actually--but this stunt’s taking the cake. Frosting and all, man.”

John hums in agreement. “I’ll help where I can, dude,” he says, and the “dude” part comes out more like “dood”. You sigh.

“You don’t have to go and break your back for me,” you protest. But John’s already “ah, ah, ah!”ing.

“I want to help! That’s what buddies do!”

You want to argue a bit. John doesn’t deserve to wade waist-deep through this motherfuckin’ doozy with you, but if you take it up with him, he’ll manage to get what he wants anyways. He’s probably the most talented human in Houston when it comes to convincing people to do things his way, even if they originally don’t want to. Something about his personality just screams “trustworthy,” or “follow me!”

You bite the side of your cheek, resigned. “Fine, bro.” You can’t see it, but you’re sure John’s grinning in triumph.

“Great!” he chimes. And you turn your attention back to the syringe, poking the top into the one-way opening on your arm bag after rolling up your sleeve. The bag’s down to the dregs, and dehydration’s a bitch to deal with.

“So first off,” John interrupts, “do you want someone to drive you back to your apartment?”

You blink. Too busy being mad at Bro, you’d totally forgotten how much of a hike it was to get there in the first place.

“If you could drive me back, you’d be a frickin’ godsend, John,” you say.

“I already am one, but I will drive you anyways,” he counters. That earns another semi-smile from you. You press the slider down, refilling the bag with IV. There’s a few seconds where you toy with the idea of slipping a painkiller drip in too, just for your headache, but based on your sudden cut in cash-money surplus and how low the supply already is, you decide against it. You toss the syringe in the trash, take a moment to dab some sweat off of your neck with a free hand.

“Think you can be here by one?” you ask. You get back a grunt of confirmation.

“Already hopping in the car, and it will probably take a good twenty minutes.”

“Great,” you start.

But then the door to the bathroom slams open, and you almost blast out of your skin like the world’s largest, least-scaly lizard. _Almost_.

“What the fresh hell,” you drone instead, and no one needs to know that behind your mask your eyes are wider than goddamn saucers.

The boy responsible for this grand entrance doesn’t walk in--no, he _sprints_ in. He’s hella tall and raggedy and he must be mildly crazy based on the fact that he’s wearing a heavy sweater when the weather outside is literally thirteen degrees away from being a _literal bonfire_.

“Is that a phone?” he asks instead of properly responding, and _yep_ , _he’s crazy_. His voice is as smooth as a fuckin’ rusty cheese grater, and it’s mildly muffled from the cheap mask he’s wearing, the kind of mediocre product you’d pick up from an Allmart if you only had fifty bucks to your name. You take a casual step back, leaving your shit unattended on the counter.

“Maybe,” you answer, even though it’s pretty damn obvious that it is indeed a phone. The boy shoots you the kind of look that can wilt flowers and give kittens heart failure.

“Ha ha,” he deadpans. “But I’m serious. If that thing’s functional, I really, really, _really_ would appreciate being able to use it.”

You really don’t know what to do about this little predicament.

“I’m, uh,” you falter. “I’m taking a phone call.”

Smooth, Dave.

One word more and you’re gonna have everybody in the facility slipping and sliding around on the floor, just because you’re so freaking _slick_.

“What’s going on?” John asks through the line. You don’t say anything back.

The boy takes a step closer, and the artificial light’s reflection is hiding his eyes now so you can’t see what’s going through his head, but he’s practically twitching, he’s so on edge. “Can you call them back?”

And there’s not a single snippet of that sweet, blissful commodity called context in this conversation, but you _think_ you’re on the defensive. “...Why?” you reply slowly.

Someone in the hallway shouts.

You hear a door down the hall slam open, and you both flinch before snapping back to the situation at hand.

“Look,” the boy says. “I know you don’t me. And I know that if some stranger barreled into the quiet sanctity of my random ass bathroom with the grace and vigor of a shitting elephant riddled with rabies and then demanded to use my phone I’d execute the world’s hastiest flip out the nearest window, but this is urgent.”

“How urgent?” you ask. He straight up _hisses_.

“Every second you waste asking me these baseless questions is like a metaphorical stab to the kidney, you festering bucket of discharge,” he spits. “The fact that I’m asking for your help physically _pains me_ , but if my call doesn’t get through, Houston’s going to get caught in a vulnerable moment with its pants down to the fucking ground and we’re all going to suffer for it.” Then he holds out his hand for the phone, as if his explanation is crystal clear.

It really isn’t.

You’re goddamn smeckledorfed.

And maybe you accidentally burned up all your brain cells in that conversation with the cop, because before you can really think things over, you hang up, _and hand the phone over_.

“Ever try investing in a debate class in high school?” you ask.

He snatches the flip phone from your palm, scoffs. “Says the idiot who just handed me his phone.” You open your mouth to fire back whatever shit spouts out first, but he’s already busy pecking out a number. The dialing sound starts up. He rams the phone up to his ear, and waits. Waits some more. Scowls when it eventually goes to voicemail.

You’re about to click your tongue, mutter, “ah, shit, bad luck I guess,” when he shifts the phone in front of his mouth and practically grits out, “ _Kanaya_.”

He starts pacing, and you’re standing stock still, frozen in one spot as he rants, “I know you’re not picking up because it’s an unknown caller, but if you’re not listening right this instant, everything is going to be fifty shades of royally fucked, so please, _please_ perk up those auricle shells.” He glances at you. Lowers his voice ever-so-slightly.

“I’m stuck in the HPD Central Patrol Station, and they’re elbowing me in the ribcage with a million and one invasive questions that I should not--no, _cannot_ answer. So you need to come up here and haul me out before they start getting angry.”

Yet another door slams. He whips his head in the direction of the sound, mutters, “mother _fuck_ ,” and hunches even closer to your phone.

“‘Rezi’s making her move tonight, meaning I have to make my move _before_ tonight. You hate the plan as much as I do, so Jesus hellfuck, get me out of here so I can do something about it.”

Another angry voice down the hall, louder but still indistinct, drifts its way into the room. You’re waiting for the bathroom’s door to open too, now.

“See you soon, hopefully,” the boy bluntly finishes. He clicks the “END CALL” button.

If you were a man with even marginally slower instincts, you’d drop your phone when he tosses it back to you--but you catch it with one hand, and the boy continues to leave you stranded aboard the S.S. So-Fucking-Confused. He wordlessly moves to turn on a sink, and starts washing his hands.

“Uh,” you say.

Then the bathroom door flies open again, and two policemen are hurrying in. You hold your hands up defensively, and the boy warily straightens his back and dries his palms on the side of his legs, eyeing the cops.

“We told you to stay in the interrogation room,” one of them says, red in the face. The boy rolls his eyes.

“What, does being in custody mean that when nature calls, I’m legally obligated to enthusiastically piss my pants and humiliate myself?”

The first cop splutters, and the second one butts in. “You were in cuffs. How’d you get them off?”

The boy crosses his arms, letting out the kind of sigh that says, ‘ _My levels of patience are smaller than abysmal at the moment, and I can’t believe I have to waste what’s left on_ you.’

“They were never properly on in the first place, _sir_ ,” he says, and his face pinches at the title. “If you want to restrain someone, try clicking the cuffs shut.”

Something about his voice makes you feel like he’s lying. It’s the same gut feeling you get when Bro leaves sticky notes around the house saying he has something “great” planned out for you, or when Dirk tells you he got eight hours of sleep. But you say nothing, riding out the thrill of not having to be involved in this conversation.

The cops don’t pick up on that feeling as well as you do, apparently.

“ _Again_ , Barry?” the second cop hisses to the first. Barry, the poor fucker, shrinks back a little.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

And that one particular awkward pause drifts up through the cracks of the conversation, the one where everyone seems to hesitate, not knowing what to say for a second.

Then the boy huffs. “Are you guys going to escort me back to the room, or can I walk there myself?”

The second cop doesn’t give an immediate response, but he strides over, wrapping a hand around the boy’s upper arm before starting to tug him to the doorway. “We’re keeping an eye on you,” he says. The boy wastes a moment trying to shrug the hand off, then promptly gives up.

“Fine,” he bites out.

They leave the bathroom in a quiet procession, just the sound of shoes squeaking against tiled flooring, and the sound of air being pushed out of their masks. No one acknowledges you, or even offers you a subtle nod of the head. You clutch your phone, and watch up until the last person--Barry--is through the doorway.

The door finally clicks shut.

The room is silent.

Then your phone is vibrating, and you flip it open automatically, hold it up to your ear.

And even though you’re pretty sure he means it in an entirely different way, John manages to say exactly what you’re thinking.

“ _Dude, what the fuck?_ ”

 

* * *

 

It’s ten-thirty at night now, and Heat and Clockwork is the same as usual--meaning the people are all acting like they each swallowed a twelve-pack of triple A batteries.

The bass is pumping hard enough that the room seems to be shaking, the crowd is going batshit, and you? You’re doing your damndest to not fall asleep at the turntable.

...It’s been a long fuckin’ day, okay? Between Bro’s broadcast and dealing with the aftermath and then getting your ass served to you on a platter via Bro’s sword the second you got home, you’re dead on your feet. Just a reanimated corpse with a really good sense of rhythm, and an even better taste in music.

The lights are pulsing and your head’s still hurting, but you bob it regardless. Anything to seem like you’re genuinely into this gig. Otherwise you risk your pay getting cut, and it’s not really necessary to emphasize how badly you cannot allow that to happen.

The song you’re on is tailing to an end, and you waste a minute or two slicing up the next song on your mental list. The red tank you’re wearing is drenched through. Someone in the audience flat-out screams, but you don’t bother looking up. The drip going around tonight is supposed to be heavy on the mind-fuckery, and judging by how half the room’s IV bags look like they’re full of diluted piss and glitter, it’s just another patron on a bad trip.

You start building into the new song, throwing its pieces into the places of the former song where people won’t question it. And patrons don’t stop dancing to look confused, so you think it’s a pretty decent switch. Great.

You can’t find it in yourself to be overly proud though, too hung up on a daydream about getting to go home and shower. There’s running water and soap and even a _towel_ involved--just, whew. Hot damn. Something about it feels borderline pornographic at this point.

You reach the point where you can send the new song off on its own, giving yourself a minute or two to simply breathe. And then when that time’s up, you lather, rinse, and repeat. Again. And again. And again.

You’re running on autopilot, taking up the time by doing mental math whenever your phone tells you it’s been an hour. One hour DJing is twenty dollars, and three hours total for three days a week is one hundred eighty. One hundred-eighty minus the ninety bucks spent on nutrition pills and teeth cleaners weekly leaves you with ninety. A commission for Dirk takes four days and costs one hundred-fifty at least, but then the once-every-two-weeks IVs chop into that with a cost of one hundred-twenty, leaving him with thirty bucks extra. So on the weeks where you don’t need the IVs you’ll be fine, but on the others? You’re screwed. You haven’t even taken extra costs into account, and to be honest, frank, truthful, _whatever_ , you don’t want to.

Masks, while being a goddamn hassle a great deal of the time, work wonders when you want to scowl, but you’re not supposed to be bitter. So yeah, you’re scowling. It’s kinda therapeutic.

The crowd cheers when you transition into a hit single from eight years ago, back in 2120. It’s one of those rare tunes where they managed to salvage the audio from a CD made in the Prebomb Era, and pasted the singer’s voice into something new, with a lot more electro and heavy beats.

But when the bass drops and everyone screams along, “ _Hey, I just met you!_ ” you remember exactly how drunk you have to typically be in order to sit through this song. And that’s on a good day. So you rearrange the cords so that your station’ll move into autoplay, and you slip your way off of the platform, into the crowd.

It’s a nightmare getting to the bar, as per usual. People shout in your ear and jostle you and waggle syringes of the drip--Fool’s Gold--in your face, and worst of all, someone rams an elbow into your chest. Fuckin’ ouch. But despite it all, you make it out.

The bartender is flipping through plastic bins that are arranged by color on the shelf against the wall, white to black. She shoots you a quick nod as you sit on one of the old-as-balls stools, and you mutter, “Whiskey, any type’s fine with me.” Then you hunker down, and wait. The rhythm from earlier is still stuck in your brain, and you drum it out with a finger.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap, tap.

The bartender comes back with a syringe filled with your smooth, golden-brown elixir of the tired-as-shit gods, and places it on the counter in front of you. It’s free of charge, one of the few perks of working in this shithole.

You say “thank you” and pick it up before twisting it into the right position, already moving to inject it when you spot something...familiar. The guy next to you, hunched over the countertop, is wearing a sweater. And it’s surprisingly ratty.

You put down the syringe. Take a long, heavy second to look him over.

When that suspicious feeling starts clogging up your lungs like secondhand smoke and you’re pretty sure the guy’s exactly who you think he is, your brain mutters, “to hell with it”.

“Sup,” you say to him.

Slowly, he turns his head to look at you. There are purple smears under his eyes that you never noticed before, and the lighting makes his skin look dark.  _Way_ darker. But it’s him.

“Oh no,” he breathes.

“Hi again,” you lamely respond. Offer a little wave.

Just as slowly as before, he turns to face back forward, away from you.

“I did it out of necessity before, but listen here, shitbag,” he grouses, voice flat. “I don’t talk to aristocrats.”

Your mind reels for a second, because _fuck, what_? _You’re poor as hell_. But then psuedo-smoke from your exhale of surprise clouds your vision for a second, and you remember. It’s the mask. Duh.

So you shoot him a pointed stare. “I’m not an aristocrat.”

And the guy fiddles with one of the two syringes in front of him, glances back at you. “Sounds like something an aristocrat would say.” Then he shoves the nozzle into his bag’s opening, and lets out the slightest grunt when the shit starts hitting his bloodstream, a few seconds later. His IV bag is still clear. You think he might be using a vodka drip.

“Christ,” you say.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he says back. Pauses. “Or someshit along those lines. I think I got that right, though.” He scratches his jaw, stares at the sagging support beams of the building. “If you can’t tell, I’m a little inebriated at the moment.”

It’s probably the most normal tone he’s used with you so far, and of _course_ it’s when he’s drunk.

At a loss for what else to say, you tap out that rhythm again. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap, tap. Then a thought occurs to you.

“Didn’t you say you had plans for tonight, dude?”

His eyebrows furrow.

“Didn’t I say that you should mind your own damn business?”

You shake your head. “Nah.”

He growls, and despite your belief that he’s almost _definitely_ the kind of guy that’d go straight for your jugular when pissed, he doesn’t. Instead, he sighs.

“Everything already happened while I was busy, and now here I am. Injecting copious amounts of sludge into my bloodstream as an ass-backwards form of self-care while some random crotchstain uses our three-minute history to cram his ugly nose into my personal affairs. Like a dog forcibly trying to sniff another dog’s butthole.”

And that jab tells you that you should probably leave things be, take your whiskey drip and set sail, but something about him makes you stay in your seat.

“For the record?” you say. “It’s DJ Crotchstain to you. And don’t you think that after the little shitshow you pulled this morning, a guy might just want a little context?”

The boy is silent for a moment. “Probably,” he belatedly replies. “But hilariously enough, the context is exactly the reason why I _can’t_ share the context.” Then he swivels to look at the empty platform with the turntable, then over to you. “...You work here?”

Fucking hell.

“What part of ‘I’m not an aristocrat’ didn’t wiggle its way into your skull, man?” you complain. “The best part about this mask is that my words are crystal clear. Cleaner than a commercial for dish soap, dude.”

He just shrugs. “Most of the people I know with masks that pretentious live in mansions.”

“I live in an apartment without air conditioning.”

Now his look is dripping with sympathy. You can tell he’s considering you in a different light, peeling off the mask and looking at your bruises, your well-worn clothes and callused, freckled hands.

“Well then,” he says. “I’ll grant you one little tip as a thank you for earlier--but after this, I owe you jack shit. Nada. You could literally be combusting in front of me, and if I had a glass of water on hand, I’d waste it on making mud.” His voice is starting to slur a little.

“You’re an asshole; noted,” you deadpan. He groans.

“Shut the fuck up and accept my generosity, okay?”

So you shut the fuck up, and let him offer you his generosity.

He leans a little closer to you in his seat, eyes darting from side to side, looking for eavesdroppers before fixing back on you.

“Don’t go near the Mask and Co. shop tomorrow. At all. Stay the fuck away from it, it’s bad news.”

Now you have a million and one questions, but you can’t figure out which ones need to be asked. The Mask and Co. is the city’s main supplier in gas mask supplies, and it’s right across the street. Technically, you _need_ to go near it tomorrow if you still want your job.

“What--” you start, but he’s already standing up, straightening out his clothes.

“I’ve got to go,” he says. He forks a few bills out of his pocket, tosses them on the counter.

“I don’t even know your name, man,” you say back.

“It’s Karkat,” he bluntly answers, but the vodka’s making his words even more indiscernible, so you don’t know if what you’re hearing is 100% correct. “Remember what I said.”

Then he’s stumbling off, through the crowd, headed towards the dark entryway. You watch him until he’s lost in the mass of swaying, singing people before you twist back forward, and inject your well-deserved whiskey drip. It makes you simultaneously warm and cold.

Getting back to your platform is fifteen times harder when the only direction gravity seems to want to pull your face is downwards, but you manage, and your drunken mixing seems to be more popular than not.

Only when it’s one-thirty am and you’re stumbling back to your apartment, still mildly smashed, do you realize that Karkat’s mask was a little different from the one you’d seen in the police station. Both were generally plain, standard editions. But the new one had one specific detail.

And ten minutes later when you crash into your mattress-supported-by-cinderblocks bed and let your eyes fall shut, you can see it clear as day:

The zodiac symbol for Cancer painted silver, its circles looping their way around the eyeholes of the mask.

 

...Huh.

  
  
You wonder what all that's about.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this entire chapter is 3,000+ longer than my usual blurb, and im dying squirtle
> 
> but surprise!! i didn't ditch this!! school just got in the way and then life just got in the way and then like four months after posting the prologue, i could actually type out this hellbeast, LOL. 
> 
> it's been a while since i've done anything HS-related so i hope the vibe's alright! also, the pacing was kinda rough to hammer out and i had half a mind to chop this chapter off after the bathroom scene, but in the end? all these events really need to stick together. so i guess that's more bang for your buck? i know things are kinda really confusing here, and the post-apocalyptic vibe is not quite strong yet but. i promise. it's there. 
> 
> example: the reason the police station seemed so dysfunctional is because it is! most of the institutions you're gonna be seeing throughout this fic are pretty half-baked due to a lack of time given to their re-development. thus, cops don't do their job well and laws aren't properly reinforced, then there's other things like the whole leviathan that's the economy, lol. 
> 
> while i'm at it with the worldbuilding, i'm gonna specify ages now, even though it'll come up in the fic itself a little later. dave and john are 19, karkat's 20, dirk's 25, and bro's age is top classified. if anyone ever learns the truth he jumps on the dark web and hires a hitman to take them out.............................. ok not really but if he COULD, he WOULD. 
> 
> final thoughts:  
> -the song paired with this chapter is "aftermath" by caravan palace! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imCd-m32oAs)  
> -sorry for errors, i type things fast and i don't have a beta due to an irregular schedule, but i swear i try to find everything!  
> -thanks so much for reading, i hope you enjoyed it! :^D


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